Prosecutors have 48 hours to appeal an order to review all evidence against four alleged homegrown terrorists after a judge said they failed to turn over key information about the lead defendant.
Judge Colleen McMahon indefinitely postponed the trial of the men from upstate Newburgh this afternoon and said she would consider arguments on Monday to release them on bail pending further developments in the case.
“No guarantees, gentlemen, no guarantees. But I will listen to bail applications, given everything that has gone on,” she said.
All four have been jailed since they were arrested in May 2009 on charges of plotting to bomb two Riverdale synagogues and shoot down military aircraft at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh.
Earlier today, McMahon said a memo by an FBI agent who told security personnel not to worry if they saw James Cromitie conducting surveillance at Stewart should have been revealed to the defense months ago.
“There is absolutely no excuse for this not to have been raised in the fall or winter,” McMahon said during a hearing this morning in White Plains federal court.
Prosecutor David Raskin — who insisted the memo by Agent Robert Fuller wasn’t covered by disclosure rules governing evidence favorable to the defense — said a review of the voluminous records could take months.
“This case has a lot of tentacles, even though it doesn’t involve overseas terror operations per se,” Raskin said.
The defense contends the men were entrapped by a government informer who lured them into a sting operation.

